As a part of the usual non-writing portion of pulling a book together, I went about painting the cover in early 2018, even before the manuscript had seen a proper editing. Much like the artwork for the Realm of Tah’afajien series, I stuck with completely hand-painted art instead of digitally-edited for The Long and Dark.
Stylistically, I would say that there are heavy influences of German Expressionism (see The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Metropolis).
In June of last year, I detailed the process of creating this painting (part one - part two). Feel free to step on over and see how this piece came together. Or check out the Instagram posts below for a few of the images.
Below is the final painting.
Media: gouache and watercolor on hot press board.
Size: 16 x 20
And the final book cover. As you’ll notice, the bottom portion is cropped out in favor of the logo and my name. For those who have the trade paperback, you’ll see that this portion of the artwork is on the back.
